It all started with an Oscar for me... Got told it would be fine in my community tank of neons and angels.... It ate and killed most of my tank within a month... Then moved onto Firemouths and Red Devils etc etc - Had 5 tanks crammed in my room with barely any space for a bed - that was 25 years ago.
A Jack Dempsey was my gateway cichlid. Obviously most ppl are likely to start with what a LFS has. I didn't (and still don't) live in an area with a great cichlid selection. One day I saw this ancient monster jack with bright iridescent scales all over him and a crooked mouth. It just clicked and he ended up being my intro into cichlid keeping. I had seen giant oscars countless times before that and was never interested enough to get one.